In a Glazed Daze in Italy: Glazed terracotta pottery

From concrete planters to Italian terracotta pots, custom glazing has been one of Eye of the Day’s strengths for over fifteen years. We are sometimes amazed by the wild colors envisioned by one designer after another for special colors or finishes, but always try to provide what each designer or client requests. Either the beauty, quality and history of the colorful kiln-fired glazes produced by our most treasured American manufacturer, Gladding McBean, or hand painted and stained Greek pots made the same way for millennia will fulfill most requests.

As the largest distributors in the USA of the famed French Provencal pottery known as Vase Anduze, we have a wide selection of colors and sizes. We ship them from New York to San Diego and Washington state to Florida. Colorful pottery is the finishing touch:  the eyeliner, pearls and earrings for your home and garden.

Last month my son had his winter break and was able to go to the Terrecotte San Rocco factory in Italy with me to see the glazes they have started to produce. Part of preparing our children for the world and possibly to follow in our footsteps is to share our day to day labors. I wanted to take Ben to the factory so he could see it and be part of the process as well as to show him where this historic tradition of terracotta pottery comes from. We Segwayed our way around Rome seeing sites with historic statues, fountains, and pots from past millennia. The context was not lost on him and when we got to the Rocco factory, he was as dazzled with the new colors as I was.

For more than five years our largest factory, Terrecotte San Rocco has been experimenting and testing glazes to add to their impressive line of fine, frost proof terracotta pottery and their range of colors is magnificent and beautiful. Now we can offer all the great shapes in colors, including custom colors, to our clients. Don’t be afraid to dream up impossible colors for all of Rocco’s fabulous shapes.

We’ll dazzle you!

Brent

Why Expensive Pottery for Your Garden?

Whether you are a garden enthusiast or if you’re like me and have gardening in your soul, no doubt you are always on the lookout for great pots—not just great shapes and styles but pottery that lasts.

English lead containers and Francesco del Re’s pure bronze pots might be the most expensive planters on the planet, but who buys plant pots made from lead or solid bronze? Guilty! Recently I wrote about Italian pottery from the commune of Impruneta and tried to debunk the myth that it is not the name of Impruneta itself which is important but the clay they use. Not all clay is equal and when the pottery you are looking at has a high price tag, don’t be afraid to ask some questions about the origin, the clay body used, the firing temperature and duration in the kiln.

Many people think we only sell expensive pottery at Eye of the Day, and we do carry high-end items, but there is the saying “You get what you pay for”.

At a local nursery, a competitor of ours sells the classic Italian double rolled rim planter with a 24” diameter for $. The product is produced by one of the largest pot manufacturers in the world, Deroma of Italy. These pots are made from inferior clay and you will find that they start to break down almost immediately.

Our high quality Italian double roll rims will last for a century or more. Our price for the same size pot is $—a big difference for a pot that might last a decade opposed to one that will last for 100 years or more. The conclusion is: high quality pottery isn’t necessarily more expensive, it just depends on where you shop and what you know about the quality of the pots.

Learn more about terracotta and how terracotta pots are made at our blog.

Related Articles:
The Truth Behind the Aged Terracotta You Buy
Inside the Pieces: Why We Love Authentic Pottery

The Clay Authority – Debunking the Myth of Impruneta Clay 

If you don’t have a subscription to Garden Design magazine, you really should do yourself a favor and get one. This new issue, Spring 2016, has a beautifully presented article about the legendary pottery artisans of the small hill commune of Impruneta just outside of Florence.  If only as a travel guide to garden lovers, it reads like a NYT Travel section “36 Hours” of what to do and where to go in this tiny historic commune.  Of course, you always can pick up a copy at Eye of the Day.

For a long time I have complained that many Italian pottery manufacturers have falsely used the name “Impruneta” to sell their Italian pots, often at an inflated price. This wonderful article helps to debunk this misnomer and offers a wonderful guide to visitors and lovers of quality Italian garden pottery, abundant throughout the country. Besides, after pasta, what does one think of when Italy is mentioned but double rolled-rim planters?  Well, maybe shoes and olive oil might come up…

The essential part of the article was the brief mention of the actual terra cotta clay material found and used by these artisans in Impruneta. Many would have you think that Galestro clay can or is only found here and this is not the case as it is prevalent throughout the Sienese countryside. Francesco del Re was so adamant that his production of what many consider the finest Italian terracotta produced today be trademarked as “Terra Forte” clay so as not to be confused and wrongly named Impruneta. But the simple fact is still: All of the high quality, long lasting and frost proof terra cotta pottery found in Italy uses Galestro clay and does not have to be found within the commune of Impruneta.

At Eye of the Day, our main Italian terra cotta product is made with 100% Galestro clay manufactured for us by Colorobbia of Montelupo, Italy, and the largest Terracotta manufacturer in the world. Sounds impressive, doesn’t it?

What is really impressive is that our high quality, frost proof Italian terracotta will not only last for centuries, it is affordable when compared to similar pieces stamped with “Impruneta”. And please, don’t get me wrong, I have beautiful Impruneta pots, Francesco del Re pots as well as pots from other artisans of fine quality Italian terra cotta in my garden but all are manufactured using 100% Galestro Clay.  That’s why I’m the Clay Authority.

Planted pots and containers add color and visual interest to your landscape design, garden and outdoor living areas. Choosing the right pots can be a challenge with the wide variety of options available today. Consider adding beautiful Italian terracotta pottery, created to handle the elements and last for decades.

What is Galestro Clay?
Eye of the Day’s Italian terracotta pottery is fabricated from Galestro clay, fired at an extremely high temperature. It is a high-quality, dense clay known for creating particularly durable pots, frost resistant to -15 degrees Fahrenheit. Galestro clay is found in Tuscany, near the borders of Grosseto, Arezzo and Siena. Pots made from this clay are created by hand and air-dried before firing. If conscientiously maintained, this pottery will last decades.

Terracotta Pottery: Style
In addition to customary classic pottery like the beloved double roll rim, more ornate Italianate styles featuring details such as garland, rosette and leaf motifs, are available to infuse your home with old-world design. Eye of the Day’s Terre Colorate line brings clean, modern Italian design to contemporary garden style.

Whatever your garden style, with Eye of the Day’s help you can add a clear visual appeal using Italian terracotta pots.

Eye of the Day Garden Design Center provides high quality pots for decoration and for planting. Learn more about our Italian terra cotta pottery.

Inside the Pieces: Why We Love Authentic Pottery
Baked Earth series with Scott Semple

Hello to all and nice to be here again. It’s a classic Fall morning here on the Central Coast. I am currently walking around the Eye of the Day showroom, sipping Mint tea, trying to keep Shorty the dog at bay and writing to an enthusiastic yet invisible audience about my favorite messy, muddy medium: clay.

So, I’ve been thinking about this word “authentic.”

The first time I stepped foot into this showroom, I’m pretty sure what came out of my mouth was, “Wow, finally, authentic pieces.” I feel blessed to have traveled a good part of the world. I have not only seen, but intentionally sought out traditional pottery in villages from the foothills of Guatemala to Pokhara Nepal, from the backside of Cuba, to the historic potteries of Crete and mainland Greece. Knowing a thing or two about pottery and what it takes to build large format ceramic vessels, I walk in to Eye of the Day and immediately I’m transported to the smell of Turkish coffee in the Mediterranean, or the intense glow of a Native American dung firing.

This showroom is the gathering place of authenticity. You can look down inside these big pots and see what it took to make them, the marks that the sponge leaves while it spins on the wheel, the throw lines, and where sections of the piece were connected and not only joined, but adorned. The Greek ware in particular is notorious for actually celebrating the area on a vessel, like this one, where sections of spun clay were joined together to make a much larger form. I can see handles on pots that at first glance seem just like handles but are actually an integral part of how the artist moves the piece from the kiln to the customer. Or all these pots that have tool marks inside them from popping the occasional, yet inevitable air bubble. It’s all there, inside the pieces.

I’m talking about form—the mark of what it took to create the form, the container, not the decoration or the way the fire has licked it here or there on the surface. I tell my students almost daily, there is a form and there is a surface. Learn to treat each as a separate component, and you will be successful in clay. The form by itself should stand up to serious critique.

The work for sale at Eye of the Day is authentic. Not overly decorated or gaudy, not borrowed to look like it’s from some other culture. It is Authentic Classicism, coming from some of the few places in the world that are still producing wares that are handmade, timeless classical forms. We end up longing for these pieces, like touchstones from a place and time in history.

My last stop on the showroom tour has brought me to the Italian terracotta. Eye of the Day has the largest collection of authentic Italian terracotta containers from Terrecotte San Rocco in the entire country. There is so much handmade information in these vessels, I could talk and talk about it (as you probably guessed). But for now, I promise to revisit this topic of Italian Terrecotte San Rocco. How it is built, where the clay comes from, why it is frost resistant and more.

But until then, get to know what is inside a vessel, not just its outer reveal.
See you next month!

Over the last few years we have focused on survival and have been importing only products that have become our staples: Italian terracotta, French Anduze pottery and hand-thrown Greek terracotta pots.   Pre-Recession, Eye of the Day traveled throughout the world and brought back some amazing things for our customers.  These one-of-a-kind items coupled with our large inventory of antique oil jars from Italy, Greece, Spain and France have helped see us through slow times.  We often hear that our customers are amazed with our large inventory and what a pleasure it is to be able to find items for their projects.

Many of our special finds have been sold so now it is time to begin exploring the shops and fairs throughout Europe looking for old jars, pieces of stone, architectural iron and funk that just seems to work in a garden.  I look forward to keeping you updated with my wanderings and great finds over the next few weeks, and hope that you may find something to tickle your fancy that you just can’t live without.

Many who know about my wanderings comment that I am lucky to travel around the world and that you wish it were you.   I sometimes wish it were you too and that I could just stay home, read, give Suzi a wish list for each meal and try to burn through a cord or two of oak in our fireplace.  But reality is different, and I find myself with an emptiness in my stomach, feeling homesick before I ever leave.

The ambivalence of arriving in Rome with a cold and my luggage still somewhere at Heathrow keeps me from going to my favorite dive in the ghetto for baby artichokes fried in olive oil.  Instead, I sleep for eight hours and have a marginally decent pizza in the hotel bar (how bad can a pizza be in Rome?).

Finally I catch the last train to Chiusi and meet up with Marcello, owner of Terrecotte San Rocco.  We drive to his home in the hills of Siena where his wife and mother, Nona, have a pot of pesto al Genovese ready and tonight a platter full of prosciutto and a variety of salumi.  It could definitely be worse.  After dinner Nona brings out a small bottle of deep amber liquid, a Christmas gift from an old friend.  There are no labels or foil and it looks to be hand-corked.  My mouth begins to water.  I hope it is a local Vin Santo.  The pruny, sherry-like liquid makes me almost forget the three dozen oysters and magnum of champagne we had with our daughter in Brooklyn on Christmas morning.  Almost.

New Years Eve day we are off to a nearby town for a big antique fair.  It is sparsely attended which gives me a little breathing room to adjust to my antiquing personality.  Walking up and down the steep cobblestone streets of the ancient Tuscan hill town is hard work and makes me hungry.  There is not time to sit down to the wonderful food in a local restaurant, but I find a nice salumeria and a sandwich of excellent prosciutto, pecorino and to my friend’s surprise, a few thin slices of lardo.  A glass of local vino rosso in a plastic cup and I’m back pounding the cobbles.  I find many interesting, but highly priced items, and then find a dealer who wants to bargain…

Below are some photos of some beautiful antiques that I found during my trip to the antique fair.  More to come!

On New Year’s Day I wake up late but I’m glad that the house is quiet.  It allows me to organize my week ahead at the factory.  My partner, Marcello, is the most progressive manufacturer in Italy.  In the afternoon he shows me a new factory he just started with a partner to produce quality terracotta for large garden centers.  While older, traditional terracotta manufacturers are going out of business, Marcello is buying their factories and their molds and working to develop new items.  Our association with this man and his business is becoming to be the backbone of Eye of the Day.

Next week:

Bologna and a little spaghetti.  After that I’m off to France to pick up a special order for a new landscape architecture firm wanting pots from Anduze that we don’t have in stock.  It will be an experiment renting a truck in Italy, driving to France for the pots and take them back to Italy to put on the container.  We are about to find out if this will be less expensive, faster and more productive than shipping by truck from France to Italy or shipping by pallet from Marseille.